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Sunday, 17 January 2010

Stitching

When I first started writing this blog I said that, as well as books and films it was also going to be about the progress of my stitching, and then I haven't done anything about that since writing this, so this is my initial stitching news.

Winter's Majesty by Maia.

I haven't actually done much of this one yet, and haven't done anything on this for nearly two months, and most of what has been done to date was done when I was off work for a day last year, I seemed to get loads done that day, but it barely seems to have grown since then, despite the fact that I have deen working on it occasionally. I'm aware that at the moment it mostly looks like I just threw stuff at the aida and waited to see what stuck.

Really enjoying it, and it's going to be an absolutely beautiful piece when it's finished, but it's quite complicated and takes a lot of concentration so it's not something that I can pick up for a few minutes then put down again, it's got to be something that I work on when I know I've got at least an hour to work on it, otherwise it's just not worth picking up.

There's a lot of confetti stitching in it, which means I'm really having to think about not trailing cotton across the back where it can be seen. There's also a lot of half stitches, which on 16 count aida isn't exactly something that I relish, but again, I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

I've been stitching on and off for years, but I always give my projects away, so when I finished my last project at the end of last year, my partner made me promise that my next project would be something that I'd keep for myself, so this is what I picked as the one I'd like for myself.

Tenderness by Vervaco.

The trouble with Vervaco is that I tend to find that it's called by different names on different sites. The site I bought this off it was called Tenderness, so that's what I call it.

I'm making this as a present for a partner, he's a chiropractor, and I thought it would look nice in his clinic, it was meant to be a secret, right up until the moment he caught me working on it, so, it's still a present but it's no longer a surprise and I can work on it when he's in the flat now.

Really lovely to stitch, I'm rather fond of these Vervaco sepia kits, this has only got seven or eight colours in it and looks absolutely amazing. Also, because it's so few colours it's really lovely to work on, it's nearly all nice easy blocks of colour to stitch, no flitting back and across the material to do one or two stitches but the final effect is just so striking.

I'm enjoying this one so much that I've actually just bought another of the Vervaco sepia's to do as a present for someone else as well.

Now that I've actually started writing about my stitching I do occasionally intend to publish picture sof my progress, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to write each time, because my opinion is unlike to change that much, until I get the opportunity to see what I think of the final piece, but I'll see how it goes.